Art Van Furniture says redesign of its Portage store is part of the company's growth plan (photo gallery)

PORTAGE, MI – The Art Van Furniture group of stores is opening
franchise stores in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois, adding a new bedding
store in Kalamazoo, and making sure its properties are ready for the
future.

The Warren-based business hosted a grand opening for its
redesigned and renovated location at 550 Ring Road in Portage, adjacent
to The Crossroads mall.

The idea, according to company Founder and
Chairman Art Van Elslander, is to upgrade customers’ experience and get
the business ready for the future.

“I think the customer today wants to see state-of-the-art displays and things they can do with their homes,” Van Elslander said.

The redesigned store accomplishes that, he said.

“It’s not about selling alone," he said. "Our philosophy is to have consumers come in and spend time in the store."

He said people are looking for ideas on everything from painting to wall-papering.

Van
Elslander rounded out visits to new and improved store locations
Thursday with a evening visit to the Portage store to help celebrate
renovations there. Work was done over more than four months but the
business never closed.

Art Van Elslander

The company will not say how much it has
spent on the process, but Diane Charles, director of communications for
Art Van, said, “We made a significant investment in the building and in
the community by renovating and updating.”

Highlights include: a
more open showroom with a higher ceiling, new signage, new graphics and
updated finishes throughout the store; a new and expanded ground-level
area for mattresses and bedding; an expanded Clearance Center for
one-of-a-kind, manufacturer close-out, and scratched-or-dented items;
an expanded area for its Showroom Youth Department; and a new core of offices, restrooms and facilities for employees.

He said he has been so excited about
the interior renovation that an exterior renovation is soon to start to match
it.

The reopening
includes updates
in the store's furniture offerings, including upholstered items, leather
furniture, master bedroom sets, dining furniture and recliners. It
continues to be a center for Paul's TV, the California-based seller of
large-screen TVs. Its area inside the store was renovated a little more than a
year ago.

"I think they will see our commitment to the community and the business here for the long-haul," store
Manager Mike O'Grady said of customers who have not visited for a while.

O'Grady said the renovation work allows the business to
utilize about 8,000 more square feet inside the 79,000-square-foot
location. He said the redesign included tearing down some interior walls
to allow the lower-level Clearance Center to grow to about 18,000
square feet. It had been about 7,000 square feet. It also allowed the
business to relocate its mattress and bedding sales from the lower
level to the ground floor level.

They are marketed as Art
Van’s PureSleep Aisle, a sales system that involves testing consumers
and helping them find the mattress, bed and bedding they need to sleep
better.

Van Elslander said Art Van’s second store in the greater
Kalamazoo area will be a PureSleep store at 330 N. Drake Road. It will
use space formerly occupied by Big Deals Sports Bar and is expected to
be open by March, Art Van announced in December that it would sign the
10-year lease at the location, invest $250,000 and hire three employees
to operate the store.

The Portage store, which has about 40 workers, is one of 34
existing Art Van stores that the Van Elslander family owns and operates. They are all in Michigan. But the
number of Art Van stores grew by two Thursday as franchise locations were opened
in Alpena and Mount Pleasant.

They will also be owned
by families who have been in business for a long time, Van Elslander
said. The location in Mount Pleasant is a former Wendell's Furniture
store. The location in Alpena is the former Young's Furniture, owned by a
family of that name
that has been in furniture sales for more than 50 years.

Van Elslander said Art Van has agreements to
open other franchise locations in Gaylord and Sault Ste. Marie. It
intends to make its fors business forray outside of Michigan this summer by getting a franchise established in Toledo, Ohio, and
openng the first of what is expected to be six stores in the Chicago area
in July. All six are to be open by the end of this year, Art Van President Gary Van Elslander said.

The expansion of the
brand through franchising allows others to offer the broad and complete
selection of home furnishings sold by Art Van, Art Van Elslander said.

The conversion of the
Young's Furniture in Alpena was accompanied by that store doubling its floor
space.